movements. The telegraph and
the railroads have grown up together in this country since 1850, and in
view of the excellent results that the telegraph has given in train
dispatching and of the close alliance that has always naturally existed
between the railway and the telegraph, it has been difficult for the
telephone, which came much later, to enter the field.

=Rapid Growth.= The telephone has been in general use among the
railroads for many years, but only on a few short lines has it been used
for dispatching trains. In these cases the ordinary magneto circuit and
instruments have been employed, differing in no respect from those used
in commercial service at the present time. Code ringing was used and the
number of stations on a circuit was limited by the same causes that
limit the telephones on commercial party lines at present.

The present type of telephone dispatching systems, however, differs
essentially from the systems used in commercial work, and is, in fact, a
highly specialized party-line system, arranged for selective ringing and
_many stations_. The first of the present type was installed by the New
York Central and Hudson River Railroad in October, 1907, between Albany
and Fonda, New York, a distance of 40 miles. This section of the road is
on the main line and has four tracks controlled by block signals.

The Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad was the second to install
train-dispatching circuits. In December, 1907, a portion of the main
line from Aurora to Mendota, Illinois, a distance of 46 miles, was
equipped. This was followed in quick succession by various other
circuits ranging, in general, in lengths over 100 miles. At the present
time there are over 20 train-dispatching circuits on the Chicago,
Burlington, and Quincy Railroad covering 125 miles of double track, 28
miles of multi-track, and 1,381 miles of single track, and connecting
with 286 stations.

Other railroads entered this field in quick order after the initial
installations, and at the present time nearly every large railroad
system in the United States is equipped with several telephone
train-dispatching circuits and all of these seem to be extending their
systems.

In 1910, several railroads, including the Delaware, Lackawanna, and
Western, had their total mileage equipped with telephone dispatching
circuits. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad is equipping its
whole system as rapidly as possible and already is the